1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to an oral cleansing article, and in particular to an oral cleansing article adapted to be received in the mouth as a whole and manipulatable with the tongue to dislodge foreign particles, promote salivary excretion, massage the gums, and drag bacterial plaque.
2. Description of Related Art
Due to increasing demands associated with occupational and social activities, personal commitments to health care, especially preventive health care, often suffer. Simple preventive treatments, such as the brushing and flossing of teeth, often are overlooked, neglected, or consciously deferred until a later, more convenient time. Unfortunately, continued neglect of dental hygiene can detrimentally lead to accumulations of harmful bacterial plaque in the mouth, especially at interfacial boundaries defined between adjacent teeth and between teeth and gums.
It would, therefore, be advantageous to provide a self-supporting oral hygiene article that could be employed concurrently with normal occupational and social activities. Such an article preferentially would be receivable as a whole in the mouth during use and capable of being used involuntarily so that attention could be maintained during occupational and social activities.
An oral cleansing article adapted to be received in a human mouth is disclosed in Costa Rican Patent No. MI 76, patented Feb. 2, 1996, the complete disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. The oral cleansing article disclosed in this related art is depicted at FIG. 1 herein and generally designated by reference numeral 100.
As shown in FIG. 1, this conventional article 100 includes a core portion 102 having a plurality of protruding members 104 extending therefrom. The Costa Rican patent discloses that the protruding members 104 are purportedly configured to define complementary shapes with respect to the anatomical structure of the teeth and gums.
Each of the protruding members 104 of the conventional article 100 has a generally conical shape terminating in a generally rounded distal end 108. Although this configuration is purported to complement the shapes of the teeth and gums, the rounded shape of the distal ends 108 prevents the protruding members 104 of the conventional article 100 from advancing deep into the interfacial boundary defined between adjacent teeth or between a tooth and gum of the mouth. Thus, the effectiveness of the conventional article 100 in dislodging foreign particles, such as food particles, embedded in such interfacial boundaries is limited. Moreover, the relatively small surface region defined by the apex of the distal end 108 of protruding members 104 provides an inferior contacting interface between the conventional article and the gums, thereby restricting the massaging function of the protrusion members 104 of the conventional article 100.
A need, therefore, exists to provide an oral cleansing article suitable for dislodging foreign particles embedded in interfacial boundaries defined between adjacent teeth of the mouth or between a tooth and gum of the mouth, while simultaneously providing a large contacting interface for massaging the gums.